Nigel Farage has abandoned the Leave campaign for being “too humane”, saying it had become a distraction from his “long game plan” to whip-up racism.

A sewage plant in east London

The UKIP leader said the rest of the Leave campaign was a “put-up job” to make the message less irresponsible and that Brexit would happen anyway if he could just get people to hate foreigners as much as he does.

Farage told Swan Bake: “The message had become about making Britain great again. Frankly, it’s got nothing to do with making Britain great again and everything to do with making Britain racist again.”

Farage spoke as he unveiled his latest controversial campaign poster, with the slogan: ‘How would you feel if you were being raped right now by a big black man? Because it’s definitely going to happen. Probably in your Brexit.’

He said: “It’s not controversial. These are the only words we could say because migrants have taken all the others. Fact.”